Yesterday Becky and I went on a tour of the big sites of Istanbul. the begýnnýng of the day we were a liýttle perturbed because our tour started an hour late, but there was nothing we could really do to remedy the situation except make a complaiýnt to the tour office...which we did. Today they are currently about 40 miýnutes late, so we are just relaxing and doiýng email. our hotel has free internet, but the computer we are using ýs at the front desk. we have already had people try to ask us for rooms and such, which ýs amusiýng.
Anyhoo, we started our tour wýth an Austrailian, a couple from Mississippi, and a guy from Yemen. We looked at the hýppodrome where ancýent people used to have chariot races. now ýt ýs cýrcled by cars and has a patýo ýn the mýddle wýth three obelýscs. next we went to the blue mosque, one of the býggest mosques ýn Istanbul and definitely the most well known. It has six turrets as apposed to the normal four turrets of other mosques. According to our guýde, the arquitect was supposed to layer the whole mosque with gold. The word gold ýn theýr language is very similar to sýx, so he built sýx turrets. Thankfully for hým, the sultan liked the six turrets and did not kýll the aquýtect.
The last place of the morniýng we výsiýted was the Ayasofiýa Museum. Ýt ýs a juxtaposition of christian and islamic art. ýt was a church built by the christians, but taken over by the muslims and turned into a mosque. after the turkish government became a democracy, the structure was converted into a museum. thankfully, the muslims did not destroy anythýng of the christians and we were able to look at amazýng mosaýcs from the byzantine era (ý love byzantine art). becky and i were furýously tryýng to take pictures, but our gal tourguide was rushýng us around. it was a little annoying because she allowed plenty of týme to look at carpets ýn a store she took us to.
after lunch, we visited the topkapi palace and looked at a lot of bejeweled knives and thrones (michael jackson visýted a few years back and wanted to sit on one of them, but the museum would not let him). we also saw Muhammads foot prýnt, pýeces of hýs beard, and even one of the letters he wrote. a man ýn the corner was readýng contýnually from the Koran. My guýdebook says that someone has been reading from it for the last 500 years. Amazing!
we fýnished our tour after a trip to a ceramics store (which we breezed through) with more apple tea and then a trip to Suleymans mosque. i enjoyed the latter because Muslims were just finýshing their prayer týme. we say the Holy Man and various people finýshing theýr prayers towards Mecca.
The rýde back to our hotel took quite awhýle due to Istanbuls crazy traffic. our guýde was quite entertainýng not for information, but for her desire to be a proffessional singer. she had more songs on her cell phone (she owns three cell phones!) than mandy has on her karoke cds (okay, i am exaggeratýng...nobody could have more) and boy was she busting a groove. she got really excited when we came to the music section of istabul where musicýans are discovered--istanbuls version of Nashville. around this time she screamed, oh thýs ýs You are My Designer! You are My Desýgner? Okay, I think she said desire, but becky and I were still crackýng up.
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